50 Things You Didn't Know About Ralph Lauren

Nick Grant

Updated October 1, 2015 at 9:49 AM

Ralph Lauren's name is synonymous with iconic menswear. From the polo shirt seen on everyone at some point in history to his reinterpretation of military garb, to the iconic '90s designs that made him a symbol of street aspiration. Recently, he announced he would be stepping down as CEO of his namesake company, installing Stefan Larsson as the new man-in-charge. The Internet was unsure of what to make of the corporate shift, but Larsson's pedigree is an impressive one, and under him the Ralph Lauren brand hopes to flourish.

But as one of the most well-known denizens of fashion, there are just some things about Lauren that aren't all that well-known about Ralph Lauren the man—as well as the billion dollar company he built on a foundation of dreams. What's his birth name? Did he really make a $20k bag inspired by his wife? What was his early work? All these things and more are answered as we take a look at 50 Things You Didn't Know About Ralph Lauren.

Ralph Lauren was born Ralph Rueben Lifschitz.
Lifschitz was born in the South Bronx on October 14, 1939.
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Ralph's parents were Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants who moved to The Bronx.
Frank Lifschitz and Fraydl Kotlar were originally from Belarus (then Pinsk, Poland).
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Ralph's brother, changed their last name, not Ralph.
At age 16, Ralph's brother Jerry changed their last name from Lifshitz to Lauren. One of their other brothers, Lenny, retained the Lifshitz name for years.
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Ralph Lauren served in the U.S. Army from 1962 to 1964.
Shortly after college, Lauren was drafted and enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves and went to basic training in Fort Dix. The military heavily influenced his collections. Lauren says: “When I was growing up, officers in uniform were very impressive to me. They were doing a job; they were protecting our country; they were heroes. When you wear an old military jacket there’s some sort of connection to those qualities—to being strong, to being tough, to being a warrior.”
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Ralph Lauren got his start working for Brooks Brothers.
He got his start as a salesperson at the Madison Avenue store when he was 24 with no formal fashion experience.
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Lauren made his first ties out of old rags and sold them out of a drawer in the Empire State Building.
Lauren would go from store to store selling them. He says the ties really stood out in the market: "The ties, as simple as they were, looked very different from other ties. They were wide and unusual."
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His first source of inspiration was Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
Ralph Lauren's first ties he designed—wide, European-style neckwear initially rejected by his employer—was inspired by the ones he saw actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr. wearing. Source: Wikipedia
Ralph Lauren's first investor was preppy clothier Norman Hilton.
Lauren secured a $50,000 loan in 1968 to start his brand. He would later buy the "Polo" name from Hilton.
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A Bloomingdale's buyer once asked a young Lauren to take his name off his ties and put their private label, Sutton East, on instead.
They also wanted them a quarter inch narrower. Lauren declined. Bloomingdale's called back six months later and wanted to fill the racks with ties branded with his name.
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The first women's collection for Polo Ralph Lauren was launched in 1971, in Beverly Hills, California.
The line developed into four lifestyle groups: collection, classics, country, and active and featured Lauren's signature tailoring, but with a feminine twist.
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Ralph Lauren outfitted Robert Redford's Jay Gatsby.
In 1974, Ralph Lauren's natty suits and dapper duds starred on the silver screen in The Great Gatsby, and leading man Robert Redford absolutely killed it in the looks. Source: Ralph Lauren
Ralph Lauren's clothes feature in Annie Hall.
Some of Ralph Lauren's clothes were featured in Woody Allen's iconic Annie Hall film. According to a New York magazine article from 1993, the character of Alvy Singer wore a few of his jackets, while Diane Keaton's titular character had one tuxedo jacket from the label. Source: Wikipedia
Ralph Lauren's famous Polo shirts were released in 1972, and they came in 24 colors.
Before Ralph Lauren made the polo shirt a wardrobe staple for men and women, it was the favored uniform of polo players because its short, turned-over collar stayed down during play. It was actually in honor of the polo lifestyle that the brand’s original logo was created. The shirts debuted in a single fit.
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Ralph Lauren did not invent the polo shirt.
It was actually invented by tennis player Rene Lacoste, in 1926. He decided that the stiff tennis attire was too cumbersome and uncomfortable, so he designed a white, short-sleeved, loosely-knit piqué cotton (he called the cotton weave jersey petit piqué) shirt with an unstarched, flat, protruding collar, a buttoned placket, and a longer shirt-tail in back than in front, which he first wore at the 1926 U.S. Open championship.
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The Polo brand almost went bankrupt in 1972.
Even though he had just won a Coty Award and his Polo shirt had just dropped and was hugely successful, he had trouble managing the finances and logistics of a fashion business. Lauren then invested $100,000 of his own savings into the company and recruited Peter Strom from his post at Norman Hilton to become his business partner. Lauren then owned 90% of the company, while Strom owned 10%.
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After spending numerous summers there since the 1970s, Ricky Lauren wrote about the history of The Hamptons.
The book provides a history of the region and its creative communities while offering glimpses into the Laurens’ private world and serving up an extensive selection of the family’s best-loved recipes.
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Ralph Lauren was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
In 1987, Ralph Lauren had was diagnosed with a benign brain tumor. He had it removed in April of that year. Source: LA Times
In 1989, he helped found a breast cancer research center.
Along with late Washington Post Company president Katharine Graham, Ralph Lauren founded the Nina Hyde Center for Breast Cancer Research in Washington, D.C. as a tribute to former Washington Post fashion editor Nina Hyde. Source: Georgetown University
The Rhinelander Mansion, home of Ralph Lauren's flagship store, is named for heiress Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo, who commissioned it, but never actually moved in.
After being completed in 1898, the lease bounced around until 1983, when Lauren purchased it and performed a 18 month renovation. From 1967 until the early 1980s, a nearby church used the top two floors for their offices.
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Ralph Lauren has an amazing car collection with a few that are priceless.
His collection reportedly features over 70 cars.
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There's a portion of the Ralph Lauren website dedicated to his car collection.
Yep, http://www.ralphlaurencarcollection.com is a legit thing. It's a part of the site that gives you a peek into Lauren's massive car collection, and you can take a closer look at some of the serious horsepower in his stable.
Ralph Lauren owns a Bugatti worth $40 million.
He woke up in an old Bugatti. Lauren owns one of two existing Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantics in the world—only four were ever produced. His was made in 1938 and is powered by a straight 8-cylinder engine with twin overhead camshafts and a compressor. It can reach 200 kph. Because the body is aluminum alloy, it couldn't be shaped and soldered, so Jean Bugatti built the thing by hand. In 2013, it won the Concorso d'Eleganze Villa d'Este. Source: Jalopnik
The RRL collection takes its name from Ralph Lauren's Double RL Ranch in Telluride, CO.
The line is meant to be the type of stuff Ralph would wear at the ranch. The two "Rs" reference Ralph and his wife Ricky.
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Ralph's daughter Dylan opened her own franchise of candy shops.
Dylan always had a love for candy, ever since seeing Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory at her 5th birthday party. She eventually cultivated her love of art and candy at Duke University, where she studied art history and spent her junior year abroad in London and Rome—tasting and discovering new candies, and collecting artful wrappers and packaging from her travels. She opened her flagship store in New York City in 2001.
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A lot of popular menswear designers have worked for Ralph Lauren at one point or another.
Working at Ralph Lauren is a rite of passage for many designers who go on to become successes themselves. Former employees include Simon Spurr, John Varvatos, Vera Wang, Todd Snyder, Tory Burch, Tim Coppens (who designed RLX), Thom Browne (a former creative director of Club Monaco) and Michael Bastian.
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J. Crew's head men's designer is a Ralph Lauren alumni.
No wonder J. Crew's menswear has been killing it. Frank Muytjens, J. Crew's head of men's design, spent eight years working at Ralph Lauren before making the move to J. Crew. Working at Ralph Lauren helped foster the Dutch-born Muytjens' love for Americana, workwear, and menswear classics, which now shines through J. Crew's killer men's offerings. Source: MR PORTER
Polo Ralph Lauren gave the world the first black male supermodel.
Tyson Beckford, male model extraordinaire and the masculine equivalent of the females dudes thirst after in music videos (see: Toni Braxton's “Unbreak My Heart”), got his biggest break in 1994, when he secured a Polo Ralph Lauren campaign, He was the face of Polo Sport. Source: Arogundade
In 1999, Ralph Lauren shut down a magazine related to the sport of polo for calling itself "Polo."
The magazine belonged to the U.S. Polo Association. The ruling was reversed upon repeal in 2001, but the magazine had to include a small disclaimer, stating that it was "not affiliated with Polo Ralph Lauren."
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Ralph Lauren owns Club Monaco.
Ralph Lauren Corporation purchased the Canadian-based retailer for $52.5 million in 1999.
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There's a 50/50 chance you've been saying "Lauren" wrong this whole time.
According to Ralph's niece, Jenny Lauren, the iconic last name is pronounced "as the girls' first name [laur-un] and not the same as Italian actress Sophia Loren [lo-wren]."
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At 37,000 square feet, Chicago's Ralph Lauren store is one of the world's largest.
Inspired by New York's Metropolitan Club, this RL flagship is pretty huge. Designed by the legendary John Williamson, the sprawling store is a luxurious testament to the Ralph Lauren lifestyle, the type of mega-mansion his customers wish they could live in. Back in his blogging days, Virgil Abloh gushed about the lemon-garlic butter shrimp and wild rice. Source: Ralph Lauren
Ralph Lauren opened the RL Restaurant in Chicago in 1999.
Located adjacent to the world's largest Polo store, it is the first and only Ralph Lauren restaurant in the U.S. There is another RL Restaurant in Paris.
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Kanye West once got a seersucker suit tailored in the RL store.
On August 29, 2004, MTV filmed Kanye West stepping into the Chicago Ralph Lauren store to get a seersucker suit tailored for an episode of their Diary series. He also cops some other stuff too. Source: YouTube
There are just about 30 sub-brands under the Ralph Lauren umbrella.
This chart, originally from Jean-Noël Kapferer’s ‘The Luxury Strategy: Break the Rules of Marketing to Build Luxury Brands’, has just about every single Ralph Lauren subline on it. Two notable omissions caught by the legendary writer Gary Warnett? Polo Jeans and RRL. Source: Gwarizm
Jennifer Aniston's character on Friends, Rachel Green, worked for Ralph Lauren.
In Season 5, she leaves her job as a Buyer and Personal Shopper at Bloomingdale's for an executive position at Ralph Lauren. The designer plays himself on the episode "The One With Ross' Teeth." He had two cameo appearances, both of which took place in an elevator.
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In 2006, Ralph Lauren became the first designer to officially outfit participants at Wimbledon.
Lauren was tapped to redesign the uniforms for ballboys, line judges, court judges, etc. The Wimbledon logo was also redesigned for this purpose.
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Ralph Lauren's “Big Pony” logo stemmed from their sports partnerships.
Since 2005, Ralph Lauren has partnered with sports associations like the USTA, and outfitted Wimbledon in 2006. The “Big Pony” logo sprang up around this time as a way to make the Polo branding much more visible. “The Big Pony has been associated with the product collections tied to our successful sporting partnerships such as Olympics, U.S. Open and Wimbledon,” said a Ralph Lauren spokesperson to The Wall Street Journal in 2012, when they sponsored the Olympic Team Uniforms. Source: WSJ
The Polo Bear began as a stuffed animal.
The original “Polo Bear” was a stuffed Steiff bear given to Ralph Lauren as a birthday gift. It was dressed up in a RL Western-style outfit. Lauren loved it so much it became a company tradition to dress the bear up in a different outfit each year. Soon, the bears were actually sold in stores before making their foray into clothing. The Polo Bear sweater debuted in 1991. Source: Trivia Happy
Ralph Lauren created the Ricky Handbag, inspired by his wife, and it can cost up to $22,500.
All Ricky Bags are made by hand in Italy from 50 separate pieces of leather and nine different pieces of hardware, requiring two expert artisans 10–12 hours to make one bag.
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After Rugby shuttered, Vado wanted to start his own clothing line to carry the torch.
Dipset affiliate Vado loved Ralph Lauren's Rugby line so much he literally named his son Rugby, and also has a song called “Rugby Down.” In 2013, after the preppy-infused subline shuttered, he told XXL: “He know that with Rugby, it’s mostly Blacks wearing it—that’s why he’s shutting it down.” Vado also said that with the line closing, he was going to partner with a brand like Striver's Row or Akoo to make the kind of clothes that carried on Rugby's street prep appeal. Source: XXL
Ralph Lauren has officially ditched “Polo” from its brand name.
In 2011, Ralph Lauren announced it was officially dropping Polo from its brand name. The idea was to further distinguish itself from the polo shirt, which has become a generic menswear staple. Word on the street is that the dropped “Polo” was last seen hanging with Jay Z's former hyphen.
In 2014, Ralph Lauren's revenue was roughly $7.5 billion.
That's enough money to buy pretty much every Ralph Lauren grail piece in the world. Source: Wikipedia
PoloTech is the brand's foray into smart fashion.
Looking smart is one thing, but smart clothes are an entirely different matter. Recently Ralph Lauren has made its foray into the wearable tech market with PoloTech, a smart shirt that works with an iPhone app to deliver workout data in real time. Source: Polo Ralph Lauren
Ralph's son David married into a presidential family.
David works at his father's company, where he's the Senior Vice President of Advertising, Marketing and Corporate Communications. In 2011, he married Lauren Bush, daughter of businessman Neil Bush, which makes her granddaughter of President George H.W. Bush and niece of President George W. Bush. Source: Wikipedia
The Lauren family has a rescue dog named Rugby.
Rugby is the Lauren family's dog who was rescued when they found him near the family ranch in Colorado. Since then he's been all over the place, traveling with them to the Hamptons, Montauk, and beyond. He was featured in a spread in Harper's Bazaar with Ralph Lauren, a lifetime dog lover. Source: Ralph Lauren
Men's designer Greg Lauren is Ralph's nephew.
Designer Greg Lauren, known for his rustic, patchwork take on menswear, is also an accomplished artist. He's the son of Ralph Lauren's brother Jerry. In addition to painting nudes (pause) that command up to $15,000 and having sold work to celebrities like Demi Moore and Ben Stiller, Greg Lauren has also done covers for DC Comics' Hellblazer series. He's also married to Elizabeth Berkeley, aka Jessie Spano. Source: Wikipedia
There was once a J.C. Penney-exclusive diffusion line.
From 2007-2012, American Living, an exclusive lower-priced Ralph Lauren line without any visible RL branding, was sold at J.C. Penney. It was discontinued in 2012 as J.C. Penney focused more on even cheaper clothes. Source: Racked
The U.S. Polo Association cannot use the word “polo” or a polo player on any of its merchandise.
It ain't Ralph, tho! Because of the strength of the Polo Ralph Lauren brand, a federal judge ruled in 2011 that the U.S. Polo Association—the literal organization pertaining to the sport of polo—cannot use the word “polo” or the image of a horse-and-rider to market its fragrance.
Ironically, an independent South African company trademarked the Polo name and logo in South Africa, which gives them the rights to use it even though it is not affiliated with the Ralph Lauren company.
Source: Racked
They were once sued by Levi's for their jeans.
In 2007, Ralph Lauren was among several companies sued by Levi's, accused of copying the company's trademark arcuates on the back pockets of their jeans. The case was later dismissed. Source: CNN
Ralph Lauren is the only designer to win all of the CFDA's four highest honors.
Ralph Lauren has nabbed fashion's EGOT, managing to win the Council of Fashion Designers of America's four top awards in his career—the Lifetime Achievement Award, the Womenswear Designer of the Year Award, the Menswear Designer of the Year Award and the Retailer of the Year Award. He also won the CFDA's first-ever “Most Popular American Designer” award in 2009, an award the public voted for, and the CFDA's first “American Fashion Legend” award in 2007. Source: CNN